But the next minute I understood. "OUR dead"—the involuntary admission of that sole feeling, which makes one, erewhile a stranger, say to, or think of another—"All thine are mine, and mine are thine, henceforward and for ever."
I watched John as he stood by the fire; his thoughtful brow and firm-set lips contradicting the youthfulness of his looks. Few as were his years, he had learnt much in them. He was at heart a man, ready and able to design and carry out a man's work in the world. And in his whole aspect was such grave purity, such honest truth, that no wonder, young as they both were, and little as she knew of him, this poor orphan should not have feared to trust him entirely. And there is nothing that binds heart to heart, of lovers or friends, so quickly and so safely, as to trust and be trusted in time of trouble.
"Did she tell you any more, John? Anything of her circumstances?"
"No. But from something Mrs. Tod let fall, I fear"—and he vainly tried to disguise his extreme satisfaction—"that she will be left with little or nothing."
"Poor Miss March!"
"Why call her poor? She is not a woman to be pitied, but to be honoured. You would have thought so, had you seen her this morning. So gentle—so wise—so brave. Phineas,"—and I could see his lips tremble—"that was the kind of woman Solomon meant, when he said, 'Her price was above rubies.'"
"I think so too. I doubt not that when she marries Ursula March will be 'a crown to her husband.'"
My words, or the half sigh that accompanied them—I could not help it—seemed to startle John, but he made no remark. Nor did we recur to the subject again that day.
Two days after, our little company followed the coffin out of the woodbine porch—where we had last said good-bye to poor Mr. March—across the few yards of common, to the churchyard, scarcely larger than a cottage garden, where, at long intervals, the few Enderley dead were laid.
A small procession—the daughter first, supported by good Mrs. Tod, then John Halifax and I. So we buried him—the stranger who, at this time, and henceforth, seemed even, as John had expressed it, "our dead," our own.